


hysteria when you’re near

by tempestbreak



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti)
Genre: Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Aphrodisiacs, Autofellatio, Barebacking, Begging, Big Dick Eddie Kaspbrak, Bratty Eddie Kaspbrak, Cockwarming, Dirty Talk, Facial, First Time Bottoming, Getting Together, Implied Hanbrough, M/M, Marathon Sex, Masturbation, Mildly Dubious Consent, Multiple Orgasms, Nipple Play, Overstimulation, Plot What Plot/Porn Without Plot, Post-IT Chapter Two (2019), Service Top Richie Tozier, Sex Pollen, due to the aforementioned aphrodisiacs, kind of, that's the vibe so i'm tagging it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-14
Updated: 2020-07-14
Packaged: 2021-03-05 00:01:56
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 18,129
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25265047
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tempestbreak/pseuds/tempestbreak
Summary: Richie Tozier is a weak man.And if he has to fuck the love of his life to avoid having to confess his feelings, then so be it.--Or: Eddie gets into something he shouldn't. Richie helps him through it.
Relationships: Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier
Comments: 96
Kudos: 691





	hysteria when you’re near

**Author's Note:**

  * For [camerasparring](https://archiveofourown.org/users/camerasparring/gifts).



> this is an early birthday present for [jade](https://archiveofourown.org/users/camerasparring/pseuds/camerasparring)! thanks so much for almost 300k of reddie (is that right!?), here’s a drop in the bucket in return. <3 love you!
> 
> to everyone else: please mind the tags! the guys love each other and wanna bone but it’s an aphrodisiac/sex pollen scenario, with everything that entails.
> 
> title is from "hysteria" by def leppard.

Richie Tozier is a weak man.

This is news to exactly nobody, including Richie, but still. It’s really being driven home these days.

Why else would he still be in fucking Derry? Talk about overstaying your welcome, right? No one asked for this encore.

Least of all Eddie.

Because Eddie’s shoulder is almost fully healed. Miraculous. A regular Wolverine, this guy.

Because Wolverine’s superpowers aren’t the ( _snikk!_ ) claws, actually; it’s his healing that allowed him to survive it when they put ( _snikk!_ ) claws in him in the first— You know what, never mind. That’s not the point.

The point is, it seemed like every time a doctor came into his hospital room, they knocked at least a day off his expected recovery time. First it was six weeks to regain full range of motion, then four, then two. And then it was being measured in days, not weeks: ten, seven, five, _two_ …

You get the picture. Wolverine.

Anyway, some sorta residual Derry weirdness healed Eddie’s shoulder, which used to have a hole in it the size of a softball. Or a giant space clown crab claw, if you wanna get technical. No complaints, honestly—it’s nice to have Derry magic work for them for once—but Richie’s gotta admit, it wasn’t exactly the plan.

See, he had these dumb images in his head of nursing Eddie back to health. Of being the only one who stayed behind. Of sitting by his bedside table, helping him reach for things that were too far away. As it is, he only got to say, “Go-go Gadget arms!” _once_ , and _that_ is a fucking travesty.

And he only got to say, “Sooo, Eds, in the cavern, when you put your hand on my face and looked in my eyes so hard and said, ‘Richie, you know I… I…’ before you passed out from blood loss or pain or something… What exactly did you mean by that? What did you want to say? What was the end to that sentence, Eds? Because I think I might have the end to that same sentence lodged in my throat, too. I really think I might. And maybe if you said the end of yours, and maybe if it really was the same… well, then, maybe it could seep in through my ears and nose and skin and eyeballs, and my dumb, crusted-over heart could soak it up, and then all that pressure building up in there for years and years that the docs all said was cholesterol could finally pop the end of my sentence out of my craw like a cork out of a champagne bottle. Because I think it might be choking me, Eds, I really do think it’s choking me.”

He only got to say that never.

And Richie Tozier is a weak man, which is why he never will.

***

Today, Eddie was discharged from the hospital with his arm in a sling and a prescription for the good shit. Like, shit-that’s-destroying-West-Virginia good.

Richie was there to meet him. Well, him and Bill.

In Richie’s dreams, Richie was the only one left when Eddie was discharged. In Richie’s dreams, Eddie was also already in the process of getting divorced, and had already told Richie that he wanted to quit his job and move to Los Angeles. Because in Richie’s dreams, what Eddie meant to say down in the cavern _was_ the same as what Richie’s been dying to say since they were thirteen.

Richie gets off a good one, huh?

Instead, when Richie and Bill pull up to the hospital in Richie’s rental car, Eddie is already sitting outside. He slides into the backseat, clicks his seatbelt, and huffs, “Get me the fuck outta here, I smell like a goddamn dumpster,” and lets his head fall back against the seat.

Not really the vibe Richie’s going for, to say the least.

Unfortunately for Eddie, the shower he’s awaiting will have to be awaited a little longer. While Eddie’s been convalescing at hyper-speed like a motherfucking X-Man, the rest of them have been helping Mike move out of his Borrower-style loft above the Derry Public Library. Mike is planning to see the world now that he no longer has to hold down the fort, and the others decided that helping him pack was the least they could do for their forgotten friend.

“Wow, Mike,” says Eddie, when the three of them crest the rickety wooden stairs and enter Mike’s abode. “This is where you’ve been living?” His tone is clearly meant to be neutral, but Eddie’s in a room of people who grew up with him, who have heard him rant and scream about germs and tetanus. They all see right through him.

“It’s not so bad,” Mike says with a wry smile. “It reminds me a little of the hayloft in the barn growing up.”

“Aw, yeah,” says Ben, lifting his head from the cardboard box he’s been filling with old periodicals. “I remember reading up there together.”

“Nerds,” Richie scoffs, squatting down beside Bev.

“Right, because reading comic books in the hammock of the clubhouse was the height of cool,” says Stan, helping Ben. Over by Bill, Eddie laughs, perusing the small collection of wine bottles and other sundries that Mike has on a built-in shelf.

“Cooler than reading nonfiction or looking at maps or whatever the fuck Mike and Ben probably bonded over,” Richie says. He reaches for a box and begins piling books, books, and more books inside. You’d think Mike wouldn’t need to have so many books up in his apartment, given that he already—oh, yeah— _lives in a fucking library_ , but here they are. “Hmm, _Black Rapids, The Dark, The Glowing_ …” Richie says, looking to Mike. “I think someone’s got a favorite author.”

Mike looks away, half-smiling. “Well, I kept up with all of you over the years.”

“Yeah? So where’s the bootlegged DVD of me on _Last Comic Standing_?” Richie presses. “My cameo on _8 Simple Rules for Dating My Teenage Daughter_?”

“A scale replica of the first skyscraper I designed?”

“My master’s thesis on microfinance?”

“Okay, okay,” laughs Mike, lifting a hand. “Come on, guys. I work in a library in Derry, Bill’s books were much easier to come by. Although I did try to get my hands on your thesis, Stan.”

Before Richie’s eyes, Stan’s teasing smile goes soft. It sends up a little spark of warmth in Richie’s heart. Fuck, it feels good to have all seven of them in the same room.

“All I’m sayin’,” Richie says loudly, brashly, covering the feelings as he dumps Bill’s books into the box with a thud, “is that there’s a reason you brought Bill back here to roofie instead of any of the rest of us.”

_Clink clank!_

Richie lifts his head in time to see Bill fumbling with some of the bottles, his neck going red. “R-Richie…”

“Ooh, be careful with that stuff,” Mike exclaims, rushing over towards Bill and Eddie. He carefully resets the bottles, laying a big, steadying hand on Bill’s shoulder. It only makes the flush creep farther up to Bill’s ears.

Richie rolls his eyes and looks back down at the books. “Anyway, what were you saying your next project was, Bill? The screenplay for _Attic Room_?”

“Yeah.”

“So, drawing on your own experience with attic rooms, can we expect an uncomfortable, overly long sex scene à la _Watchmen_ , or…?”

“ _R-Richie_ —”

“Jesus Christ, dude,” Eddie grumbles.

“I did not roofie Bill, Richie,” Mike says, although his patience is clearly a little strained. “I merely needed to make him see the truth, and the fastest way was—”

“—to slip him something in his water, got it—”

“I mean, it wuh- _worked_ ,” Bill mutters.

“—albeit, the dosage was a _little_ stronger than I should have aimed it, given I used the same amount that I typically take…”

Richie’s head jerks up at that, his eyebrows halfway up his forehead. “That you typically take?” he echoes. “You roofying yourself on the weekends, Mikey?”

“I’m not by my _self_ …”

“It may surprise you, Richie,” Stan says dryly, “but most people don’t take hallucinogenic drugs just to see visions of defeating evil clowns from outer space.”

Eddie snickers at that. When Richie glares, he only wrinkles his nose petulantly back at him and turns to pick up a vial from the shelf and examine it.

“Thank you, Stan,” laughs Mike, giving Bill’s shoulder a heavy pat before he moves back towards his cluttered desk. “Although I’m surprised that the accountant from Georgia knows more about recreational drug use than the comedian from L.A.”

“It’s called a _joke_ ,” Richie mutters, piling another stack of books into his box.

After that, Ben kindly takes it upon himself to move them to other topics. Mike’s imminent road trip. Bill’s upcoming movie. Eddie’s miraculously swift recovery. Bev finds a romance novel in her stack that looks like it’s from the 1970s and opens it. Immediately she has to suppress a giggle and leans towards Richie to whisper, “‘Ohhh, Jack,’ she sighed, sleepily imagining her husband’s sturdy fingers prying open her plump cuntlips’—”

Richie falls back on his ass. “ _Prying_ _open?”_

“—‘and digging into her drooling red pussy’—”

“ _Digging into!_ That’s not sexy, there’s no way that’s fuckin’ sexy—”

“Well, wait, what about this,” Bev whispers, composing herself. “‘His lustful appetite caused his large cock to bloat’—”

_Clink clank CLANK!_

This time when Richie’s head jerks up, it’s Eddie who’s frantically righting bottles on Mike’s shelf, swearing loudly under his breath. “Motherfucking, worthless-ass—”

“That that bum arm, Spaghetti?” Richie calls over with a laugh, as Mike rushes back like before to help out.

“It was the fucking _sling_ ,” Eddie gripes back at him. He’s scowling, holding his hands out in front of him like they’re wet. He wipes them on his pants while Mike carefully replaces the bottles yet again, giving Eddie a look that says, _This is why I said to be careful, you child_.

“Guess the recovery wasn’t quite so miraculous,” Richie snickers. Eddie only flips him off with both hands, even the one in the sling, before he takes the sanitary wipes that Mike offers him, and then his face goes contrite while Mike quietly scolds him.

“Richie and Eddie getting in trouble with the town librarian for being disruptive,” Stan says. “Guess some things never change.”

***

For a few hours, they make good progress packing up Mike’s life. But after Bev and Richie are lying on the floor in hysterics over the erotic novel that Mike claims was a gag gift, and Eddie is growing increasingly jittery and irritable, Mike suggests they break for a late lunch. They hit up the Tastee Diner, one of the few places they can recall from their childhoods that hasn’t become a strip mall.

Richie slides into the red vinyl booth, and within seconds, Eddie slides in next to him, _right up_ next to him, their arms flush with each other.

“Whoa, there, Eds,” Richie exclaims, flinching back. “Feelin’ friendly?”

Eddie whips his head towards Richie, his face going red with annoyance. “There’s seven of us, asshole, we gotta squeeze,” he says. “And don’t call me Eds.”

“Well, gosh, it’s certainly a pleasure to be sitting next to you, too, darlin’.” Richie rolls his eyes and drapes an arm over the back of the booth to make more room. He tries to ignore how Eddie angles himself against him as Ben slides in on his other side. Tries to ignore how Eddie doesn’t fully face forward, even though Ben seems to have a perfectly comfortable amount of space.

They continue to chat as they look at the menus. The waitress comes to pour them waters, take their orders. When Ben starts sharing pictures of his dog, and Stan pulls up pictures of his three cats, Eddie leans back against the seat, lets his head rest on the top of it, his eyes closed.

“Tired?” Richie asks quietly.

“Hot,” Eddie answers, without opening his eyes. He swipes at his forehead. “It’s hot in the belly of the beast.”

“Ye—” _Wait, what?_ Richie blinks at Eddie, beginning to frown. The fuck? “You mean in Derry? Like, the beast is the clown, and Derry is its… belly?”

“Mm,” says Eddie, and Richie watches a drop of sweat trickling down his temple. Watches the shiny skin stretched over his adam’s apple slowly flex as he swallows. “Sorry, I think maybe it’s… the painkillers or something. Making me loopy, making me… loopy.”

“Loopy,” Richie repeats, still frowning. “Well, we’ll get some food in ya. That’ll probably help—”

“All right, I have a Reuben sandwich with extra sauerkraut?”

Eddie’s eyes flare open at the waitress’s arrival, his body jerking and falling over against Richie’s with a clatter of silverware. Everyone stares, even the waitress, as Richie feels Eddie’s ribs expanding rapidly with his breathing, feels Eddie’s fingers digging hard into his thigh.

“Careful, killer,” Richie chuckles, trying not to give away how his heart is pounding to have Eddie in his arms.

“Eddie?” Bill asks softly. “You sure you’re all r-ruh-right?”

“I’m so sorry to have startled you, sir,” says the waitress, looking deeply concerned.

Eddie takes a deep breath, his eyes darting around to all of them and then the waitress. Richie doesn’t dare move, one hand hovering inches from Eddie’s shoulder.

Then Mike reaches across the table and splays one broad, long-fingered hand against the laminate. “It’s fine, Eddie,” he says calmly. “We’re all here with you. You’re safe.”

Eddie exhales shakily, his ribs shuddering, and Richie realizes why Eddie reacted the way he did. The clown, the sudden arrival of a new person, being startled. Lord knows they all have trauma, but Eddie’s must be even worse, considering the physical injury that he’s only just recovering from. That, combined with the painkillers making him feel a little wonky… it’s all gotta be a lot.

Finally, Richie lets his hand land on Eddie’s shoulder. Eddie jumps and then melts under it, against Richie. He lets out a strained sigh.

“Maybe we oughta head back to the Town House after this,” he says quietly, as the waitress begins to slowly pass plates to Stan, who sets them down in front of the people who ordered them. “Take a load off. Rest up. Whaddaya say?”

When Eddie cranes his neck to look up at him, his eyes are dilated, his eyelids heavy. Richie swallows at the look. Amazing how a panicked and drugged-up Eddie can give the sultriest fucking bedroom eyes.

“That sounds good,” Eddie says quietly. He turns back to stare at the salad that Stan places before him. He lifts a fork with his good arm but merely picks at the food. He stays leaning heavily against Richie, and Richie lets him, even when he has to eat his syrup-slathered waffle with one hand like a pizza.

Because what’s Richie Tozier again, folks? That’s right. A weak man.

***

After lunch, the others insist on continuing to help pack up Mike’s place, so Richie and Eddie say some quick goodbyes before they go back to the Town House. Richie chats idly with Stan, Ben, and Bev, all of whom are leaving Derry the next morning, leaning his elbows on the roof of his rental car while he waits for Eddie to finish talking to Bill and Mike. When he and Eddie fall into the front seat of the car, waving to the others, he tries to ignore how leaving with Eddie makes it feel like they’re a couple leaving a party to go back to their shared home.

Eddie’s quiet but jittery as they make their way through Derry. He flinches at pedestrians, jerks his head at the window when a cyclist passes them at a stoplight. If it were any other circumstance, Richie would make fun of him, but… he gets it. Derry might be clown-free now, but it still feels _wrong_ somehow. The wounds that It inflicted on Derry are much bigger and will take much more time to heal than Eddie’s.

They seem to arrive at the Town House not a moment too soon. Eddie is out of the car almost as soon as Richie pulls up, the passenger door slamming behind him as he stumbles up the front steps. By the time Richie’s inside, Eddie is nowhere to be seen, already holed up in his room.

More than a little concerned, Richie gives Eddie’s door a light knock as he passes it.

“Eds…?”

He hears a thud, the sound of a mattress squeaking. Eddie’s voice is muffled and strained. “Y-yeah?”

“Y’all right?”

It takes him a surprisingly long time to answer. Long enough for Richie to let his hand fall to the doorknob, long enough to consider just barging in to make sure Eddie’s not having an anxiety attack. But then—

“Yeah, I’m pretty good! Don’t worry about me, Richie!”

Richie frowns. His voice is still weird, still strained, but strained in a way that says, _Leave me alone, I’m dealing with it,_ and, well. Richie’s not gonna pry.

“All right,” he says slowly. “I’ll be in my room if you need me. Prolly take a shower, maybe a nap. I’ll leave the door unlocked if you wanna come in, and I can’t hear you knock.”

Another _long_ pause.

“…Sounds good!”

“…Okay.” Richie lingers there for a moment. Wonders if he should just go in. If he should check. If Eddie would want him to.

Instead, he withdraws his hand. Stuffs it in a pocket. Turns and begins to trudge back to his own room.

He knows Eddie wouldn’t want him to.

***

As soon as Richie turns off the shower, he hears it—the pounding, almost frantic knocks at the bathroom door.

The clown.

Bowers.

The fucking _clown_.

His heart is racing, panic rising in his throat. He looks desperately for something that he could use to defend himself with, but all he sees is the folding travel toothbrush he got from the fucking pharmacy.

“Richie? Richie, c’mon, open up, it’s me.”

Richie’s shoulders slump in relief. “Eds?”

“…Who the fuck else would it be, numbnuts?”

Richie grabs a towel and hitches it around his waist. He reaches for the doorknob before he stops himself. His eyebrows twitch downward. “Wait…” Frowning. Gears turning. Why is Eddie knocking? “ _Eds_?”

As soon as he unlocks the door, it swings open, as though Eddie had only been waiting for the click of the knob. Richie jumps back to avoid it slamming into his nose.

Eddie is on the other side, red-faced, jumpy, and breathing strangely hard.

“Uh—” Richie cuts himself off when Eddie’s eyes lock with his. They’re huge and nearly black, wide and wild, far worse than at the diner. “Eddie, are you—”

Abruptly, Eddie’s eyes slide away from Richie’s, his expression twisting into something like helplessness as they…

Uh.

Richie has to be imagining it. He’s gotta be, because it really looks like Eddie is… checking him out. His eyes drag over his shoulders, his wet, hairy chest. They catch on his belly, the trail leading down. Richie cinches the towel a little tighter around his waist, shocked and self-conscious.

“What can I do ya for, Eds?” he asks, feigning nonchalance. He tries to brush past Eddie through the doorway to get back to the rest of the room, but Eddie doesn’t budge. He stands steadily there, so that Richie has to turn sideways and squeeze between Eddie’s elbow and the doorjamb. Once inside the room, he leans down to his duffel, fishing through it for a new shirt and boxers.

When he stands up, Eddie hasn’t moved. He’s still standing in the doorway.

Still staring.

Richie swallows hard. “Uh, I gotta…” He holds up the clothes pointedly. “You mind?”

“I won’t look,” Eddie says quickly.

Richie stares at him, but Eddie shows no signs of being joking. “ _Ooorrr_ ,” Richie drawls, tilting his head, “I could just go change in the bathroom?”

“Oh.” Eddie seems finally to get it, side-stepping out of the doorway to let Richie in again. “Sorry, I’m just…”

“A pervert, I know,” Richie laughs, closing the door behind him.

“Fuck you,” Eddie grumbles on the other side.

Richie pats himself dry with the towel and then pulls on his boxers and shirt. The cotton clings to his damp chest, going wet at the shoulders, down his sternum. He briefly considers going out in just this—pulling jeans on over wet legs is one of his absolute least favorite feelings—but he hasn’t been in front of Eddie in only his underwear in almost thirty years. It seems like a bit much.

Especially with the way Eddie is… _staring_.

“So what’d you need, anyway?” Richie calls through the door. He leans down to drag the towel over the dark, wet hair on his legs.

Eddie’s voice comes back through the door, high-pitched: “Uhh… Nothing? Why do you ask?”

Richie does a take to himself in the mirror. Scrunches up his face at his reflection like, _Can you believe this guy?_

Neither of them can believe this guy.

“Because you’re acting weird as fuck,” Richie says bluntly. He snaps out his jeans and begins to shove his foot through the leg, cringing at the wet drag. God, it sucks. “Like, even weirder than earlier. You sure you’re all right?”

He listens intently for Eddie’s reply as he straightens. Zips and buttons his pants. Scrubs his wet hair lightly with the towel again.

“No…”

It’s so quiet at first that Richie’s not sure he heard right. He and his reflection eye each other uncertainly before he whips around to open the door, the towel hanging around his shoulders.

Eddie is still standing just on the other side, looking even more jittery, even more red-faced. When the door swings open, he looks up at Richie through his eyelashes, his eyes huge and plaintive, and Richie’s heart gives a dumb, childish flutter that immediately makes him want to close the door again and hide from Eddie. Hide from his stupid big eyes and his cute fucking face.

Jesus, he thought those days were behind him.

Instead, he leans on the doorframe in some semblance of cool. “What’s up?”

Eddie looks down and huffs. “Okay, so.” One hand goes to his hips as he begins to nervously pace. “You know that drug that Mike gave Bill? To make him see that bullshit ritual?”

“Yeah?”

“And you know how when we were at Mike’s earlier, Mike said that he actually usually uses it recreationally?”

Richie frowns at him. “Dude… did you steal from Mike’s stash?”

“No!” Eddie exclaims, throwing his hands up. “Or— I didn’t mean to! It just kind of… got on me. Accidentally.”

Richie’s eyebrows lift. He remembers: _Clink clank clank_. “You mean, the bottles—?”

Eddie nods, wincing. “Yeah…”

Richie winces back at him. But then he thinks. Realizes what Eddie’s saying. A teasing grin slowly spreads. “You sayin’ you’re trippin’ balls right now, Eddie?”

Eddie glares at him and swipes at a bead of sweat rolling down his temple. “ _No_ ,” he bites out. “I was tripping balls, like, hours ago…”

Like that’s some sort of defense. Completely adorable, this guy. Richie can’t believe he forgot him.

“What I’m saying,” Eddie goes on, “is I think there was more than one reason Mike takes this drug recreationally.”

Richie tilts his head at Eddie. Takes him in. He doesn’t look like he’s having a particularly good time, to be honest. He’s sweaty and flushed, and his eyes are kinda bugging, looking even bigger and darker than normal. His hair is a little mussed, like he’s been running his hands through it. But he definitely doesn’t look particularly chilled out or euphoric or whatever, so…

Richie’s confusion must show on his face, because Eddie huffs angrily. Slices the air with the flat of his hand. “And I’m _saying_ … I think there’s a reason Mike usually does it when he’s not _by_ _himself_ …” And his eyes go so wide that Richie knows that Eddie thinks he has been perfectly clear.

But…

Uh.

Richie squints. “…What, you need like, a buddy? A sober soldier?”

Eddie’s face screws up so tight at that, getting redder by the second, but Richie’s not sure if it’s from the drug or the obvious frustration that he is causing him. “No, I don’t need a _buddy_.”

“Then what, Eds? I can’t help you out if I don’t know what—”

“It’s a fuck drug, Richie!”

Richie’s mouth snaps shut with a tiny click. He blinks, feels his eyes go wide. Might even stagger a little against the doorjamb, because…

“Eddie.”

Eddie lets out a strangled noise of reply.

“Are you saying you’re…”

Eddie makes that same noise. He closes his eyes, nods. His good hand slides from his hips to the front of his pants and… _adjusts_.

Richie swallows. Looks up at the ceiling.

_don’t look down don’t look down don’t look down_

Richie looks down.

Eddie is obviously, and extremely, hard in his jeans.

Richie lets his eyes skitter away right afterwards, flying back to the wallpaper, to Eddie’s red, sweaty, pleading face.

God, Eddie looks so deeply uncomfortable. It is so not appropriate for Richie’s dick to be trying to do what it’s doing.

Richie takes a deep breath and lets it out. “Why don’t you just go…” He gestures vaguely, because that’s the best he can do at this point, with Eddie’s big, deep, brown eyes on him. “…take care of it yourself?”

Eddie scowls at him. “You don’t think I tried that? You really think I would be here if I hadn’t tried that?”

“Well, I dunno, man! This is kinda new territory for—”

“Oh, it’s new territory for _you_? What, you think I’m just getting myself high on sex drugs every weekend?”

“Look, whatever you and the missus get up to is _your_ —”

“Oh, _please_ leave her out of this, for Christ’s sake, I do _not_ need—”

“Well, then why don’t you tell me what you _do_ need?” Richie cuts in. “Because I’m having a hard time parsing exactly what you want from me, man.”

Because the thing that Richie thinks that he wants can’t possibly be the thing that _Eddie_ thinks that he wants.

“Bill said…” Eddie runs a jittery hand through his hair, growing wilder by the minute. “Bill said that— that the effects calmed down after he and Mike…”

Richie feels his own eyes bugging now. Bill… and Mike? Bill and Mike?

Like…

“Bill and Mike?”

“Yeah. Mike, uh.” Eddie swallows audibly and then gasps afterwards, like he almost choked on his own spit. “Helped him out.”

Richie can’t help the incredulous giggle that streams between his teeth. He rips his glasses off his face, begins ostentatiously to clean them. “Helped him ou— Yeah, all right. That’s, uh… _quite the euphemism,_ Eds.”

Eddie lets out a high-pitched noise, scrubbing his good hand down his sweaty face. “Well, what do you want me to say, Richie? Bill didn’t give me fucking _details_ —”

Richie throws his glasses back on, defensive. ( _Too_ defensive, dude, you’re so fuckin’ obvious.) “Whoaaa no, no details, _please_.” (But actually…) “Don’t need to know exactly how _helpful_ Mikey was—”

“About a trillion times more helpful than you, apparently!”

“Hey!” (That’s a full-on yelp. Chill the fuck out, man.) “I’m very helpful! See me back in the cavern? I threw a rock! I pulled off that thing’s fuckinnnn’, uh, uh, Alaskan king crab leg! Helpful as the next guy!” He pauses. Licks his dry lips. Tries to keep his voice from getting any higher because soon it will reach a frequency only bats can hear. “As long as the next guy isn’t Mike, apparently.”

“Apparently!” Eddie’s tone is deeply bitter.

And deeply confusing.

Like, what the fuck, Eddie doesn’t seriously want Richie to…

He doesn’t.

He can’t possibly.

Richie stares at him, barely blinking, feeling like a statue of a completely thunderstruck man.

Eddie, on the other hand, clearly can’t stay still, pacing a few feet in either direction. To be fair, he does look immensely uncomfortable: itching at his arm in the sling, a crescent of sweat soaking through his shirt under his collar, under his arms. His eyes keep darting over to Richie, like they can’t stay away.

He doesn’t seriously want Richie to…

He can’t possibly.

Maybe it’s not what Richie’s thinking. Maybe he’s totally misinterpreted everything Eddie’s said. Maybe Eddie just wants him to, like, draw him an ice bath, or give him some Ambien to knock him out or something. It could happen. It could be.

It could happen.

“What exactly are you asking me to do?” Richie asks tentatively.

Eddie glances at him once. Away. Back again, away again. He comes to a halt, staring at his shoes.

Then he slowly looks up at Richie from under his thick, upturned eyebrows, eyes huge and meaningful and plaintive in his face and—

Oh.

 _Oh_ , he…

He _does_ seriously want Richie to.

_“Dude!”_

“What!?”

“Don’t ‘what’ me! You _know_ what!”

“I didn’t say anything!”

“You didn’t have to! You gave me… _fuck me_ eyes!”

“I did _not_ give you _fuck me_ eyes!”

“Oh, so you’re telling me you didn’t come in here ranting about fuck drugs just to ask me to, in your own words, ‘help you out’?” Richie’s eyes are wide while he gives Eddie very obvious air quotes.

Eddie collapses down on the bed, his good elbow on his knee, his fingers buried in his hair. “Richie, you have to. I’m gonna die if you don’t,” he whines. Richie tries to ignore the subtle slide of his thighs against one another.

“You’re not gonna die,” Richie says, having no idea. “Probably.”

“Probably?” Eddie exclaims, his eyebrows jumping as he lifts his head. “That’s enough reassurance for you? You can handle the idea of me _probably_ not dying?”

And images scream through Richie’s head. Of not coming out of the Deadlights in time. Of not rolling Eddie out of the way in time. Of not getting Eddie to the hospital in time.

Of not telling Eddie his feelings in time.

No, Richie can’t handle _probably_ when it comes to Eddie. He can’t handle _it’ll probably be fine_ when it comes to Eddie, whether it’s the safety and wellbeing of Eddie himself, or the safety and wellbeing of Richie’s own heart.

He sighs heavily, and Eddie looks up. Richie’s chest pangs at the blatant hope in his eyes.

“What do you want me to do?” Richie asks.

In a flash, Eddie is standing, his face shining with relief. Richie almost takes a step back at the suddenness of it, and his trepidation must show on his face, because Eddie tempers his expression a bit. He pauses, his hand going to the front of his pants again in a way that Richie wants to believe is simple comfort and not… what it probably is.

“Um,” Eddie says, looking away. “Could you… sit? On the bed?”

Richie swallows awkwardly. He can truly, for once in his life, say that he has no idea where Eddie is going with this. “Sure.”

He crosses the room and sits on the edge of the bed. The duvet is a cheap polyester blend, dark green with pink roses. Hideous. He rests his palms on it, on either side of his knees, and watches Eddie cautiously.

Eddie is chewing his lip, staring at Richie’s feet and pacing tightly. Abruptly he seems to come to a conclusion. He sighs, runs a hand through his hair once more, and falls to his knees in front of Richie.

“W-whoa!” Richie exclaims, leaning back. He’s about to crawl back across the bedspread when he locks eyes with Eddie, sees the nervousness and discomfort. “H-hi there.”

“Uh, hi,” says Eddie. His face is reddening again, eyes going even darker. Slowly, he places a hand on Richie’s knee. His palm is burning through the denim. “You’re… you’re sure this is okay, man?” he asks nervously. “Because I’m… I’m feeling it kinda… _crest_.”

Richie’s eyebrows are in his fucking hair. _“Crest?”_

“Yeah, it comes in, like, waves? Kinda?” Eddie is practically panting, his tongue wetting his lips. “But it’s getting bad now, and I need to…” He trails off, swallowing. “I’m not gonna, like, tear off all your clothes or anything, I don’t think, but I don’t wanna make you uncomfortable…”

 _Make_ him uncomfortable! That’s a fuckin’ laugh. Is there anything more uncomfortable than being propositioned by the guy you’ve been in love with since you were a kid to help him through some horny rampage that your librarian friend’s fuck drug set him off on?

Tale as old as time, right?

Slowly, Richie lifts a hand and places it on Eddie’s. He rubs his thumb over it and smiles the way he did down at him in the cistern. “Eddie, I promise you,” he says seriously, “nothing you could do at this point would make me any more uncomfortable than I already am.”

Eddie’s lips pull down in a frown. He rolls his eyes. He laughs. “God. Fuck you, dude.”

Richie grins. “Uh, yeah, I thought that’s what was happening.”

“Pretty sure the drug wants you to fuck _me_ , actually.”

Richie nearly chokes. Eddie laughs in his face, pleased as hell.

“Jesus Christ!”

“What? You said I couldn’t make you any more uncomfortable than you already were.”

Richie considers this. “Touché.”

And Eddie smiles up at him, and Richie smiles back, and…

_Richie, you know I… I…_

Eddie looks away. Pinches some denim between his thumb and forefinger and tugs a little. “So…” he says. “Keeping what you said in mind… can you take these off?”

Swallowing hard, Richie nods. “Uh, yeah. Yeah. But, uh, I thought _you_ were the one who…?”

“Yeah, I am, but, uh.” Eddie pauses, takes a deep breath. “I can’t really get off on myself anymore. Did that enough in my room earlier, and I think I need…”

“…a buddy,” Richie supplies with a grin.

But Eddie doesn’t even laugh. He just exhales, his eyes pinching shut. He leans his head down and rests his forehead against Richie’s knee. “Yeah,” he breathes.

“Getting bad?”

“…Yeah. I need… uh.” He turns his head to squint self-consciously up at Richie out of the side of one eye, his temple still on Richie’s knee. “Please, can I just… put my mouth on it?”

 _Wh_ —

… _aaat?_

Eddie must see the look of utter flabbergastery in Richie’s expression, because he lifts his head, his eyes going even bigger, more pleading. “I— I won’t do anything, I swear, I just wanna… hold it in my mouth. I promise.”

O-oh…

…kay.

That clears up exactly nothing, and Richie thinks he ought to say no, really truly does, because Eddie only wants to do this because of a fuck drug and Richie has been wanting this since he knew what a blow job was.

But…

But Eddie’s on his knees in front of him, face flushed, eyes urgent, fingertip circling whorls in his jeans, inching and spiraling down and up and closer and warmer warmer you’re hot Eds you’re burning up and then his finger and thumb are on Richie’s zipper and—

Richie Tozier is a weak man.

“Okay,” he says shakily. “But only if you don’t inhale.”

Something in Eddie’s eyes flashes, something clear and sharp, as he tugs Richie’s zipper down. “Was that a fucking Clinton marijuana joke?”

“Yeah.”

“It’s 2016, dipshit.”

“Yeah.”

“You’re a professional comedian.”

Richie hooks a finger into his collar. “Whew, tough room.”

But it’s probably a good thing, because Eddie berating him instead of being… _horny_ for him (what the _fuck_ ) is helping keep his boner down. Especially good when Eddie’s about to come face to face with it, and then put his face _on_ it, Christ, and oh wouldja look at that, his zipper’s down and Eddie’s tugging at the waistband of his jeans and boxers, his eyes going all glassy again, and Richie’s lifting his hips to help him out so that he can reveal—

“ _Hnh_.”

“Jesus Christ, Eds,” Richie breathes, because that was a fucking _whimper_ that just came out of Eddie’s mouth at the sight of his mostly (but rapidly becoming not-mostly) soft dick.

Eddie spares Richie not even a glance as he rocks forward and fits his mouth over him and _fuck,_ Eddie’s mouth is hot and soft and wet and Richie has to fist his hands in the sheets beside him to keep them from clenching in Eddie’s hair.

Mercifully, Eddie is staying true to his word and not doing anything, not moving. Just _holding_ it in his warm mouth. His breath puffs humidly against the crease of Richie’s lap.

Even that is a lot.

A lot more than Richie ever thought would happen, that’s for damn sure.

The seconds drag like hours, like days. Richie tries to restrain his breathing, tries to relax, tries to act like this is fucking _normal_ and not more than halfway to about eighty percent of his high school jerkoff fantasies. Eddie is on his knees between Richie’s legs, his mouth around his half-hard dick, his nose buried in the hairy crease of his thighs, and Richie…

Richie’s job, as far as he can tell, is also to just sit there and not move. He blinks hard, swallows even harder. Looks anywhere but at Eddie.

God, he hopes this fucking helps.

Eddie shifts beneath him, clearly trying to keep his mouth still as he adjusts his knees, and Richie’s not looking, very studiously _not looking_ , because if he looks down and sees Eddie’s mouth around his dick, he’s not going to be able to keep it under control. The only thing that’s helping him right now is to think about how fucking awkward it is that they’re both just… sitting here. Not talking. Like some sort of Seven Minutes in Heaven bullshit middle school game ramped up to eleven. To a million bajillion.

But then Eddie grunts, high-pitched, “ _Mmpf_.”

 _That noise_.

Eddie has to go and make _that noise_ , and it has Richie’s nerves screaming so that he really can’t _not_ look at that point and so he glances down, fully ready to glance away just as quickly, but Eddie is—

Eddie is dragging the heel of his hand over the outline of his dick through his pants.

Richie throws his hands in the air on a squeaky, incredulous: “What the fuck, you said you weren’t gonna do anything!”

“ _Mm_ ,” is Eddie’s only answer, and maybe he shrugs a little but it’s muted because of how Eddie has his hand pressed hard against the crotch of his jeans, and Richie’s brain gets it, he’s not technically doing anything _to Richie_ , but Richie’s dick is a fucking copycat plagiarist of Eddie’s because it’s really starting to twitch and jump and fill out against, _oh_ , Eddie’s _tongue_ , and he has to— he has to pull away, he has to, he _starts_ to—

Eddie digs the fingers of his sling arm into Richie’s shin. Holds him in place. Moans around his rapidly hardening dick.

Richie stills, breathing hard. He’s leaning back, resting on hands and stiff elbows at this point, staring down at Eddie whose brows are pinched tightly as he holds Richie secure in his mouth, his other shoulder working, drawing muffled grunts as he palms his erection.

“Is—” Richie licks his lips. He can’t fucking _believe_ this is— _fuck_ … “Is this helping you, dude?”

And there’s no fucking way it is, but Eddie grunts and nods, and the motion of his head bobbing with Richie in his mouth has Richie’s cock hardening more fully. It’s starting to prod at the back of Eddie’s throat, Richie can feel the soft, wet wall there, how he’s starting to drool around the thickening head, and _fuck_. Eddie’s trying to keep his mouth tight around the base of Richie’s cock but it’s hardening and lengthening in his mouth, and Eddie’s being pushed backwards on it, being driven backwards by the head of Richie’s dick pressing into the back of his throat, into his fucking _uvula_ , so that his lips are pushed out, slurping along the shaft, desperate to keep as much of Richie’s cock in his mouth as he can and fuck fuck _fuck—_

Richie shoves Eddie off his dick so hard he falls back on his ass.

Eddie’s eyes are flashing again, his hand still at his crotch. “What the _fuck_ , Richie!?”

And—

And Richie doesn’t know, he doesn’t _know_ , okay? All he knows is that Eddie is drugged up, Eddie drugged _himself_ up like the fucking moron he is, and this isn’t how he—

Okay, this _is_ how he wanted him, Eddie’s mouth on his dick—

(or Richie’s mouth on Eddie’s dick, he’s not particular)

—but it’s not the _vibe_ that he wanted—

(although this vibe has its own appeal, he’s not gonna lie)

—so the thing is…

The thing is that Richie should… stop it. Right?

Eddie would want him to, right?

“What the fuck, Richie, why won’t you just let me suck your dick!?”

Well, not-drugged Eddie would, right?

“Eddie,” he tries, “you’re not in your right mind—”

“I don’t care, Richie, I could fucking care _less_ —”

“Couldn’t.”

Richie Tozier’s a weak man.

“ _What?”_

A weak man who will take an opportunity to correct someone’s fucking grammar to avoid having this conversation.

“You _couldn’t_ care less,” he says, pushing his glasses up his nose like the nerd he is. “Saying you _could_ care less implies that you do care at least a little—”

“Well, I _do_ care! More than a little. I wanna suck your dick, asshole!”

Richie’s heart cannot _take_ this, holy fuck. He scrubs a hand down his face.

“W-well, I just…”

Richie swallows thickly, staring down at Eddie. He’s still splayed out on the floor, exactly how Richie shoved him down: knees winged out, shoulder hunched, one hand catching himself, the other rubbing hard as it can in the sling over the obvious line of his cock in his pants, he hasn’t stopped, he hasn’t _stopped_ , and Richie thinks that’s a fucking fantastic idea, the best fucking idea he’s had all day—

“I don’t think it’s a good idea.”

It takes everything in Richie to say this.

Eddie is clearly unimpressed by his fortitude.

In response, Eddie just huffs and groans and keeps fucking palming his cock through his jeans, his eyebrows drawn tight together, but then he wrenches his hand away from himself as though it causes him actual pain and fucking— he fucking _crab-walks_ , ungainly on his feet and only one good hand, backwards until his head hits the wallpaper and he settles there, his legs outstretched in front of him, and returns his hand to the fly of his pants.

“Okay, well, then… just… just sit there,” he breathes, and he huffs again and unzips his jeans and then Richie is mouth agape, brain turned off, watching Eddie— _Eddie Kaspbrak_ —reach into his pants to drag himself out, hard and red and leaking and what the _fuck_ —

“What the fuck, Eds, your dick’s fucking huge.”

Eddie glares at him while his fist pumps on his cock. His long, thick cock that has Richie’s mouth watering, that has Richie feeling like he’s the one who’s been drugged, because holy shit that would feel so good in his hand, in his mouth, in his ass…

“Good things really do come in small packages,” Richie blurts out. Teases, because he can’t not. “Or, attached to small packages.”

Eddie continues to glare, his hand sliding over his dick, his eyebrows twitching.

“I always thought that was something Tiffany’s came up with, some marketing bullshit,” Richie continues, unable to stop himself. (Eddie’s jerking off in front of him, _to_ him, surely you can cut him some slack.) “But you’re, what, five-six?”

“Five-nine, jackass.”

“—and have a fucking horse cock, dude, so—”

“Pretty sure the average horse cock is like, more than a foot long,” Eddie pants. “Does this really look more than a foot long to you?”

Richie makes a big show of adjusting his glasses, squinting at Eddie’s dick like it’s some sort of specimen as opposed to— well, _Eddie’s_ _dick_. “Perhaps just shy,” he finally declares.

“It’s not.”

“Did you just say, ‘it’s snot’? Fucking gross, dude, your dick snots?”

Eddie exhales loudly, rolling his eyes as his hand still works hard over his cock, his other hand peeling the waistband of his boxers down beneath his balls and holding it there. “Could you just— shut the fuck up and look pretty? Christ…”

Richie’s face flushes. He can feel the heat creeping up his neck into his cheeks. Eddie…

Does Eddie actually think he’s pretty or is he just being funny? Richie doesn’t know. Richie has no fucking clue.

So he just sits there. Lets Eddie’s darkening eyes rove over him, dragging, catching on bits and pieces of his body—his shoulders, his forearms, his cock, which is still three-quarters hard and laying against his thigh. He thinks distantly he should tuck it back in, but Eddie doesn’t seem to want him to, so Richie doesn’t. It just pulses against his leg, hardening fully, beginning to stand on its own. That’s okay, right?

“Oh _god_ ,” Eddie groans, his eyes rolling into the back of his head and then back, fixing blearily on Richie’s cock, curving up out of his lap.

Apparently, it’s okay.

Eddie turns his head. Presses his temple against the wallpaper and eyes him sideways, flicking his wrist. “You’re not gonna touch yourself at all?” he asks plaintively, his eyebrows bowed upwards.

It has Richie’s cock bobbing with a surge of blood. It’s getting so hard it’s nearly painful, aching for Richie to touch it. Because it’s Eddie in front of him, Eddie on the floor, Eddie against the wall, Eddie with his hand on his own cock, jerking off deliriously to Richie sitting on the edge of the hotel bed before him because he’s high on some sort of crazy-ass, Derry-ass sex drug that Mike had, and that’s—

Well, that’s incredibly fucking hot.

But it’s also… wrong…

Even though Eddie came to him specifically. Even though Eddie seems pretty fixated on him _only_.

Even though in the cavern, Eddie put his hand on Richie’s cheek and said, “Richie, you know I… I…” before he passed out from blood loss or pain or whatever the fuck.

It’s wrong…

…right?

“N-no,” Richie manages to get out, as his dick bounces again. He clenches his fingers in the bedspread, ignoring it. Pretending to ignore it.

Eddie exhales loudly, frustrated, and continues to stroke his cock. He’s breathing raggedly now, his eyebrow pinched in the middle like he’s focusing hard, and his tongue keeps darting out to swipe across his lips and sometimes it stays out, poking out of the corner of his mouth, and Richie is staring at it, knows he’s staring at it, knows Eddie probably knows he’s staring at it, but— but fuck, what else is he supposed to look at, the fucking crown moldings? It’s _Eddie_. It’s Eddie jerking off in front of him, _to_ him, that’s—

“Eds—”

“Ah, oh god _, oh god_ —” Eddie gasps, his hips kicking up.

—and suddenly it’s Eddie _coming_ , and that’s— fuck. _Fuck._

Richie has to squeeze his eyes shut, squeeze his thighs together, squeeze his hands in the ugly polyester quilt, but he’s not quick enough to avoid seeing Eddie coming all over his hand, Eddie looking down at his cock in something like disbelief, Eddie letting his mouth fall open in a little O of pleasure and Jesus Christ, Richie is fucking screwed if that’s not the end of it.

Spoiler alert: Richie is fucking screwed.

***

Eddie slumps against the wall, his release relaxing his body. His left foot twitches in a way that Richie somehow finds deeply endearing. Eddie sighs, eyes closed.

And Richie slaps his hands together and says, “Welp! Good show, old sport! Time to hit the showers, wot wot?”

Eddie cracks an eye open and looks at him. His gaze is steady right now, not hazy. Like the orgasm cleared his head a little. “It’s not over.”

Richie stares back _. It’s not?_

“It’s not?”

Eddie shakes his head. He looks pointedly down at his cock, so Richie’s eyes follow his gaze. Sure enough, it’s still long and thick and hard in his sticky hand, looking slightly redder perhaps but nonetheless erect.

Richie lets out a long, whistling breath, running a hand through his hair. He tries to laugh. “What the fuck, Mikey?”

Eddie glares at him for a second before huffing out a laugh himself. “I know, right? Who knew this was what the Derry librarian gets up to in his spare time.”

“Derry librarians can fucking party.”

“Apparently.” Eddie sighs and stares ruefully down at his erection, still going strong. He looks back up at Richie from beneath his eyelashes, and Richie’s heart gives a robust _thump_. “So… are you still just gonna sit there?”

“Uhh…” Richie licks his lips. “As opposed to…?”

Eddie’s eyes drag down to Richie’s cock. Still out. Still obviously hard. “…I dunno. Anything?”

Richie swallows. “Anything in particular you _want_ me to do, Eds?”

Eddie just looks back at him, his eyes beginning to go hazy once more. He starts to stroke lightly over his dick, heedless of the fact that his hand is still covered in come. “I think I’ve… been pretty clear…”

Electricity crackles through Richie, sparking hot in his blood. “N-not really…”

Eddie’s eyes flash briefly, one last flailing burst before he’s pulled under again. “What the fuck do you want, a written invitation?” he snaps. Then his eyelids flutter shut, his hand twisting over his dick. “Want you to _touch_ me.”

Richie’s body is on fucking fire, heat pooling in his groin, just below where his cock is hard and jutting and fucking pulsing with every beat of his heart. Before he knows it, before he can question it, he’s wrapped a hand around himself, because—

Because this is a good compromise, right? This something friends do sometimes. Jerk off in the same room. Some guys do that. Richie’s heard. Usually not _to each other_ , but still. It’s probably fine.

Maybe. Probably.

He gives his cock a slow, experimental pump, and—

“Fuck, yeah, Rich,” Eddie gasps across the room.

—his blood is suddenly singing in his veins, heat blooming rapidly in his core. “G-god…” he chokes out, one eye open and on Eddie.

Eddie’s breathing even harder. The loose circle of his fist working lightly over his cock. His thighs twitching—eyebrows twitching—lips twitching in pleasure, in— pleasure…? “A-ahh…”

“W-what’s up, man?”

(He says it very cool, very cazh. Like he’s not jerkin’ it to the love of his life. Who’s also jerkin’ it.)

Eddie pants, staring down at his hard, red cock. “It… it hurts…” he grits out but seems unable to stop the movement of his hand. “Hurts to touch…”

The answer seems obvious. “So stop touching it…?”

“Can’t,” Eddie pants helplessly, his voice ending on a high, squeezed-off note of pain. “Need to. Feels… so good…”

The room spins around Richie, and he clenches his eyes shut. He drops his head back, overwhelmed, as he strokes himself. “Jesus Christ…”

Eddie’s whines are picking up again, affected and frustrated, and Richie tries not to look, tries to ignore the fact that somehow the note of dissatisfaction in Eddie’s voice is heightening it, his desperation coiling hot in Richie’s stomach, a little voice in his head chanting _he needs you he wants you he wants you to touch him he said so_ …

Then the sounds Eddie’s making kick up a notch, going strained and strangled. Richie cracks an eye open, and his cock jerks hard in his hand, and Eddie—

Eddie is trying to bend himself in half to suck his own dick.

“Ho-oly shit,” Richie blurts out before he can stop himself, his eyes going wide. His dick throbs in his hand, growing impossibly even harder.

Because Eddie has his thighs drawn tight together, propping up his cock as high as it can go, while he curls in on himself, straining with his back and neck and jaw, reaching tongue-first for the nearly purple head of his cock.

“Holy _shit_ ,” Richie says again, because it bears repeating.

Eddie pants, slides a hand under his thigh to try to surge closer. “I used to,” he gasps, “be able to do this in high school—”

“In high school?” Richie’s mind is reeling. “I knew you in high school.”

“Yeah…” he says, like it’s no big deal, and Eddie’s mouth is so wet, salivating so hard that Richie watches in slow motion as a line of drool stretches from his outstretched tongue to land on the sticky head of his cock and—

Okay.

Okay. Get a hold of yourself, Rich.

“Don’t hurt yourself, tiger,” Richie croaks, half-laughing and eyes huge, as Eddie comes within an inch of licking the slit of his own dick. His neck is sweaty and straining, his tongue reaching reaching reaching and swear to god if Eddie Kaspbrak manages to get that tongue on his dick, if _Eddie Kaspbrak_ manages to lap at _his own precome_ beading at the tip, Richie’s gonna go the fuck off. Richie’s gonna fling himself across this room, fall on his knees, wrap his own lips and tongue around the shaft of Eddie’s cock and fucking make out with it, suck it the fuck down, slurp around it, tangle his tongue with Eddie’s around the crown and—

With a soul-rending sigh, Eddie slumps backwards against the wall. He’s breathing hard, his eyes squeezed tight in obvious discomfort.

Richie stills his hand on his dick. Tries to get a grip as he says tentatively, “Eds…?”

Eddie lurches forward again, trying again, bending himself in half, reaching for his cock with his lips, his neck red with the strain.

He gives up again, faster this time. Lets out a harsh, frustrated whine as the back of his head thuds against the wall.

For a while, neither of them moves. Richie stares at Eddie, at the deep rise and fall of his chest, his eyebrows pinched tight. Then Eddie lets out a determined huff and shoves his jeans and underwear the rest of the way down his legs.

Richie’s eyes go wide because Eddie’s thighs Eddie’s knees Eddies calves all hairy… “Eds—”

“’Mhot,” Eddie grunts, kicking at his pants as they get caught on his ankles. “Body’s hot.”

“I’ll say.”

It slips out before Richie can stop it, the honesty, but Eddie doesn’t seem to notice. He’s a man on a mission suddenly, desperately yanking off his pants and his sling and his t-shirt and then lying down on his back, his bare ass on the disgusting hotel carpet in a way that not-drugged Eddie would never fucking allow, and then he takes a deep breath and stuffs two fingers in his mouth.

Immediately, Eddie’s moaning around them, muffled and arching up off the floor, and Richie’s ears are burning with the sound, his cock pulsing with the memory of Eddie’s tongue around it, and wow, maybe holding his dick in his mouth really _did_ do something for Eddie, if the way he’s hollowing his cheeks around his own fingers is anything to go by—

“— _Fuck_.”

And Richie’s whole body flushes in embarrassment at that. Because he did _not_ mean to moan “fuck” at the sight of Eddie sucking his fingers, but he did, and here they are. Here they are, with Richie’s hand working his cock without his permission, with Eddie’s eyes dark and open and locked onto him while he writhes on the floor and whimpers around his spit-shiny knuckles.

And the way Eddie’s eyes are eating up Richie’s cock, it puts Richie in the mind that Eddie might be imagining he’s sucking on _that_ instead of his fingers. And that’s getting his cock jumping in his hand, getting him breathing hard, getting him flushed down his chest, getting him hot and sweaty and losing himself.

“Does, uh—” Richie swallows dryly, staring at Eddie’s stretched lips. “Does that help? With the, uh…”

“Mm.”

“…the drug?”

“ _Mmm_ ,” Eddie hums, nodding. With a loud, wet noise, he withdraws his fingers from his mouth and says, voice low, “Not as much as your dick did, though.”

Richie’s eyes roll back in his head. He shivers. “Eddie, what the fuck…”

He turns towards Richie, his brows furrowed earnestly. “I just wanted to hold it in my mouth, Rich, honest,” he says, as he trails his wet fingertips down his chest, leaving a thin, shiny trail that glints in the dull lamplight.

Richie tries not to stare, tries to hold Eddie’s gaze, but then he’s circling a nipple and gasping and arching at the feel and fuck Eddie’s nipples are sensitive Eddie has sensitive nipples fuck fuck why the fuck is that doing so much to him right now fuck he wants to lick suck bite Eddie’s nipples oh god oh fuck—

“…n to, I promise.”

“Wh-whuh…?”

Richie’s brain is working on a time lag right now, directly related to how slowly Eddie’s finger is moving around his taut nipple.

“I said I didn’t mean to move my mouth on you, Richie,” Eddie says, breathy. “I just wanted to touch myself, and—”

“Christ.”

“—and your dick was getting hard against my throat—”

“God, I’m— I’m sorry,” Richie says. He barely knows why anymore.

“It felt good,” Eddie breathes, eyes falling shut. “Really good. So, _ah_ , so good…” hissing as he pinches his nipple.

Richie’s cock throbs.

“God, I could fucking come just from this,” Eddie gasps. He cracks an eye open to look at Richie, hold his gaze heavy on him. “If it was your tongue, I could fucking come from this.”

Richie’s whole face knots together. He’s pretty sure he’s going cross-eyed. “Jesus, Eds.”

“ _Fuck_ ,” Eddie whines, and he twists a nipple between his fingers. Returns his other hand to his cock, which looks almost painfully hard and begins to stroke it again. “Fuck, talk to me, Richie, _please_ —”

Richie’s mind, of course, goes blank.

It’s fuckin’ typical. The jokester’s curse. _Oh, you’re a comedian? Say something funny._ Might as well flap a finger between his lips and make that Porky Pig noise.

Doesn’t seem appropriate to the circumstances.

Richie swallows hard. “…What do you want me to say?” No harm in asking, right?

Eddie doesn’t answer for a moment, his hand running loosely over his cock. He’s changed his grip—it’s overhand, the palm running over the head—and… and somehow Richie is _destroyed_ by that. Because… is that how Eddie likes it? How did Eddie find out that’s how he likes it? Was he doing it the regular way and then one day decided to switch it up? When he did it, did his toes curl? Did he suck in air the way he is right now? Did his hips buck up as he jerked and groaned and came all over—

“…one else.”

Fuck, Richie did it again. _Focus up, Tozier_.

“S-sorry, what?” he has to ask.

Eddie’s eyebrows knit together in brief, shining annoyance that makes Richie’s heart sing and his dick pulse before Eddie’s brows smooth out in pleasure again and he breathes: “Tell me what you would do if… if I was someone else.”

Oh. God.

So. There _was_ harm in asking.

Richie must pause for a long time, because Eddie cracks a big, dark eye open, and he looks at Richie so desperately, his skin flushed. “Rich… c’mon, please,” he whines. “If you don’t wanna touch me, I get it, I do, but this shit is fuckin’ crazy, man, I can’t focus on anything else, I feel like I’m on fire, I just want it to be _over_ , and Bill said that Mike had to fuck him for fuckin’ _hours_ , he didn’t even _know_ how many times he came before it finally eased up—”

“Holy shit.” Richie’s head is spinning, but Eddie is still babbling, palm sliding overhand along the head of his cock and what the fuck why does that make Richie want to shatter into a thousand pieces what the fuck what the fuck. “Holy shit.”

“—so please just do whatever would work for you, tell me what you think of when you’re alone, tell me what you would do if I was someone else, I don’t care, I don’t care if it’s a woman, I don’t care—”

A woman. Richie would laugh if Eddie’s hand wasn’t still running running running over the top of the head of his come-sticky cock.

“—say you’d fuck pussy, say you’d _eat_ pussy, I don’t care, I can figure it out, I can pretend—”

“Holy _shit_ , Eds.”

Eddie’s jaw clicks shut. His hips kick and his eyes slide closed and Richie thinks he’s gonna come right then, that the stimulation was finally too much, but no, he only looks more strung out, more delirious, more desperate.

“ _Please_ , Richie,” he gasps, and when his eyes crack open again, they’re so hazy Richie’s not even sure Eddie’s seeing him.

And Richie…

Richie Tozier is a weak man.

“Okay,” he breathes, nodding. He wraps his hand newly around his cock “Okay, yeah, yeah. I can… I can do that for ya, buddy.”

That sharp annoyance flashes across Eddie’s face again, and Richie’s heart kicks at his ribs.

God, he’s living for those looks.

“Okay,” Richie says. “Okay, uh.”

“If you were with a woman,” Eddie prompts breathily.

“If I was with a woman,” Richie echoes.

Not like it helps. If anything, it makes his mind go even blanker. But then his eyes zero in on the sweat trailing down Eddie’s temple, the teeth digging into his bottom lip, the spit-slick knuckles brushing over the nub of his nipple— and he opens his mouth.

“I’d start by,” Richie starts, uncertainly, “running my hand down her side. Lightly, just to… feel her skin…”

It feels lame right away, but to his surprise, Eddie doesn’t glare at him, doesn’t chew him out for not trying. Instead, Eddie trails one hand away from his nipple, down his chest and stomach to smooth over his ribs, his hips. He’s…

Richie swallows hard.

He’s… mirroring what Richie’s saying.

“Keep going,” Eddie says, eyes closed.

“O-okay.” Richie swallows again. God, his heart is fucking pounding. His eyes are wide and laser-focused as Eddie’s hand follows his instructions: “I’d slide my hand down her stomach to her thighs…”

Eddie’s voice is hopeful: “Between her legs?”

“Not yet,” Richie says quickly. Fuck. Not yet. “I’d just be feeling. I’d just want her to know how… how much I want her.”

“Mm,” Eddie hums, arching up against his hand as he slides it down his abdomen, grazing the hairy base of his cock and balls with his thumb. “Bet your hands would be rough. Bet you’d be pressing, grabbing.”

“I’d be trying to stop myself,” Richie confesses, voice low and husky.

Eddie flexes his fingers, scrapes his nails along the hair at the crease of his thigh. His other hand is still at his nipple, still swirling over it. “What’s stopping you?”

Richie takes a deep breath. “Wouldn’t wanna scare her away…”

Eddie lets out a low noise, one that Richie can’t parse. A smile tugs at his lips. “You come on strong, Rich?”

“Try not to.”

“Well, so far so good.” Smiling wryly, Eddie grips loosely at the root of his cock, squeezing. “Go on. What’s next?”

“I’d…” Pause. Is it okay to say this? “…kiss her.”

“Her mouth?”

“Yeah, her mouth.”

“Mm.” Eddie tilts up his chin and parts his lips. Slowly, he licks them. One hand drifts up his neck, his jaw, to press fingers lightly to his mouth, open and panting.

Richie’s breath catches. His heart is thudding painfully, screaming at him to fall to his knees beside Eddie, cup his cheek and lean in, replace Eddie’s fingers with his lips and teeth and tongue.

And why doesn’t he? Why the fuck doesn’t he? It’s clear as day that Eddie wants him to.

But it’s that voice, that voice in the back of his head, that voice saying, _He’s drugged, he’s only here because of the stupid drug, it’s not because it’s_ you _, Richie. If you touched him, if you kissed him, then he would_ know _, he would know it meant more to you, he could taste it on you, he could_ smell _it on you, and when the drug wore off, he would never want to speak to you again._

But _god_ , the idea of kissing Eddie… It would almost be worth it.

“Then I’d kiss down her cheek, her jaw.” He wants to close his eyes and imagine it, imagine doing it to Eddie, but Eddie is right there, doing it to himself. His fingers trail from his lips, alighting at each place seconds after Richie mentions it. “I’d lick at her neck, suck on it.”

“Bite it,” Eddie gasps, digging fingernails into the skin.

“Leave a mark.”

Eddie whines, his head falling back. His palm splays across his throat, nails still biting in on either side. “Fuck, yeah, I always wanted…”

Heat twists in Richie’s stomach. “Yeah?”

Eddie’s hand flexes, closes, thumb and forefinger coming together to pinch hard at the juncture of his neck and shoulder, drawing a whimper as the skin turns red. “Leave a mark, Rich,” he breathes.

Head spinning, Richie clenches his fists in the bedspread. His cock is painfully hard, precome sliding freely down the shaft to dampen his pubic hair. “Fuck, Eddie. Yeah, I would. I’d leave a mark. It’d stay for a week.”

“Everyone would know you had me. God, I always thought about it… when we were in high school…”

Electricity sparks down Richie’s spine. In high school? Eddie can’t mean that he…

But: “Please, don’t stop,” Eddie says urgently, fingers still digging into his neck, the meat of his shoulder. “What else, what else? I need—”

“Nipples,” Richie says, his mouth dry. Focus, Rich. “I’d… I’d kiss down to your— her chest. To her nipples.”

“Mm, fuck, _yes_.” Eddie buries some fingers in his mouth again, sucks them hard, and returns them to his nipples, swirling, hips bucking. “God, want your tongue on me. Want your _teeth_.”

“And while I was sucking on a nipple, I would run a hand down her stomach—” watching Eddie do just that, fingers trailing… “—down to… between her legs—”

“I’d be so wet for you, Rich,” Eddie groans, and blood roars in Richie’s veins. Eddie circles his hand lightly over his cock and pulls his palm away, cracks an eye to watch a strand of precome pull away with it. “God, look at me,” he huffs lightly. “I really am wet for you.”

Richie’s ass slides off the bed with a soft thud, catching on his heels before hitting the floor.

Eddie barely spares him a glance, only brings his sticky palm up to his mouth and spits into it before returning it to his cock and beginning to stroke. His eye, open a mere slit, finds Richie’s and shakily he explains: “Gotta… make it wetter…”

“I have lube,” says Richie, his brain abruptly coming back online.

_“Please.”_

Richie scrambles for his duffel, hands trembling so hard they’re near useless as they rifle through it, looking for the travel bottle that he’s kept in there for years. Just as he lays a hand on the smooth plastic, he hears Eddie take a sharp breath, let out a strained, almost painful noise. He whips his head around and—

Eddie, legs spread, is trying to stuff two spit-covered fingers inside his hole.

“Eds, what the _fuck_ —”

Eddie’s eyebrows are pinched together, pain written on his face. “Kinda hurts…”

“I was getting lube!”

Eddie turns his head away from Richie, his teeth digging into his bottom lip. “Couldn’t wait…”

Richie sighs, crawling back over between Eddie’s spread legs, still fully dressed but for his hard cock waving through the open fly. “You need lube for anal, you idiot,” he chides him, popping the cap with a thumb. “Take those out and let me give you some.”

Red-faced and abashed, Eddie slowly removes his fingers from his hole and holds them wordlessly out to Richie. Richie gently takes Eddie’s wrist in one hand and, ignoring how his heart flutters with just that slight touch, upturns the bottle of lube over his fingers.

“And you should only start with one,” he says, watching the lube squirt out, coating his knuckles.

Eddie whines petulantly. “I need more than _one_ , Richie…”

“You have to work your way up.” He pauses, glancing up at Eddie, who is frowning back at him. “Have you really never done anal?”

“No.” Eddie’s frown only deepens as Richie releases his wrist. He looks down at the lube on his fingers and begins rubbing them together, spreading it, before he lets them fall back between his legs, his eyelids sliding shut. “I’m not gonna be able to only do one. Want more…”

Richie’s hand darts out to catch Eddie’s once more. This time when his fingers encircle Eddie’s wrist, his knuckles brush the soft hair of his inner thigh, the hair that coarsens and thickens as it approaches the place that Richie is trying so desperately not to look at. A shudder rockets down Richie’s spine at the whimper that Eddie lets out at the touch. “You’re gonna hurt yourself, Eds.”

Eddie whines even more loudly, his head rolling to the side and back in frustration. “Then _you_ do it, Rich,” he says, eyes wide and dark. “If I’m only gonna hurt myself, and you know so much…”

Richie’s body burns, as he realizes where he is. Kneeling between Eddie’s spread, naked legs. One hand near Eddie’s hole, the other clutching a bottle of lube. Both their cocks red and rock-hard and drooling. The room spins. He closes his eyes, willing himself to regain a touch, just a _shred_ , of self-control.

“I want you to do it, Rich.”

Richie sucks in a deep, shuddering breath. “Eds…”

Eddie lets out a sighing, heartfelt noise. Twists his hand in Richie’s grasp so he can close his own fingers around Richie’s wrist. He tugs, at first lightly, then more confidently when Richie doesn’t pull away, pulling Richie up onto his knees until the heel of his hand is nestled under Eddie’s balls, his palm pressed against hot, sweaty skin, his fingertips brushing his tight hole.

Richie exhales the breath he didn’t realize he’d been holding. His eyes are wide, his heart pounding madly in his chest. Eddie’s hand is still gripping his wrist, holding him there, and when their eyes meet, Eddie’s are plaintive. Beseeching.

Slowly, not breaking eye contact, he releases his grip on Richie’s wrist and slides his fingers over the top of Richie’s hand to line up their knuckles and joints, the tip of his middle finger pressing on Richie’s, pressing, pressing it _into_ him, urging him, _begging_ him.

Eddie gasps, “Please.”

Richie swallows hard. Swipes at the sweat dripping down his temple with a shoulder. Shaking, breathing heavily, he withdraws his palm, leaving his fingertip where it is. Eddie whines a little before his eyes catch on the bottle of lube Richie is lifting with his other hand.

“Gotta,” Richie pants, “get you wet.”

He squeezes hard, squirting a generous amount onto his fingers, watching it drip down Eddie’s balls and taint to his hole, dampening the hair. Eddie squirms beneath him at the feeling, his hips lifting as the lube rolls between his cheeks.

He squints up at Richie. “Just like if you were with a woman, right?”

Richie stares at him. At his flat, hairy chest. At his long, thick cock. At his balls, heavy and tight against him and wet from precome and lube. His eyes fall to where his finger is pressing against Eddie’s hole, poised and ready.

He licks his lips. Nods. “Just like if I was with a woman,” he lies through his teeth, and begins to press inside.

Immediately, Eddie’s eyes close, his head tilting back, at the slow progress of his finger entering him. His own hand drops away from Richie’s, his lubed-up fingers encircling his hard cock and beginning to pump. “Fuck,” Eddie breathes. “Fff _fuck_ , that’s it.”

Richie feels his eyebrows knotting together with concentration, trying desperately not to go too fast. Eddie’s brain may be begging for it, but his body is still just a body; it ought to be treated kindly. He grips his other hand around Eddie’s bent knee, rests his temple against his hand as he watches Eddie’s hole greedily swallowing up his finger. Wonders how it’s possible to love someone more than he already loved Eddie. Realizes it _is_ possible at the feel of the smooth, sucking heat inside him.

Eddie’s fingers find his hair, pulling on it until Richie’s looking him in his dark, dark eyes. “More,” he begs. “And talk to me, please.”

Incredulous, Richie laughs. “God, you’re needy,” he sighs, but withdraws his finger to add more lube. When he twists two fingers back inside, Eddie keens like an animal, writhing beneath him. Richie’s cock throbs. Eddie asked him to talk, but the searing heat of Eddie’s hole is burning away any conscious thought. He bites his lip, trying to grasp at a thread of something to say.

“If I were a woman,” Eddie gasps, his hand finding Richie’s hair again, stroking his cheek, “would you fuck me?”

Richie’s eyes squeeze shut. He presses his forehead against Eddie’s knee, catching his breath. “ _Fuck_ ,” he grits out, listening to the wet sounds of his fingers thrusting into Eddie over and over. “Yeah. Yeah, I would, Eds.”

Eddie _moans_ , his head falling back against the carpet as his fist moves faster over his cock. Eyes greedy on him, Richie presses upwards, searching with the pads of his fingertips, trying to feel for the spot that he knows will make it feel even better.

 _“Fuck!”_ Eddie shouts, nearly kneeing Richie in the nose, and Richie knows he’s found it, grins in spite of himself as he rubs over it, gets Eddie trembling and moaning even harder than he was before.

“That feel good?” he croons, eating him up with his eyes. The sheen of his forehead, the flush spreading down his chest.

“So good,” Eddie whines helplessly, hand working over his length. “God, I’m getting close, so close. Tell me how you would fuck me, Richie, _please_ , I need—”

“Don’t worry, baby,” Richie murmurs, pressing a kiss to the inside of Eddie’s knee, and the pet name just slips out over his tongue, between his teeth, because finding Eddie’s prostate—being the first person ever to find his prostate—has a sick thrill of possessiveness welling in his gut, an earth-shattering feeling he’s never allowed himself before.

 _He could be mine_.

“You want me to fuck you? I’ll fuck you if you want.”

Eddie whimpers, eyes squeezed shut. Nods.

“First,” Richie says, running a hand soothingly over Eddie’s thigh, “I’d have to get you nice and stretched. Work you open on my fingers. Two’s not enough, you’d need to be able to take three.”

“Gimme three,” Eddie gasps, trying to prop himself up on his elbows and failing, falling back to the floor. (His bum shoulder, Richie thinks.) He still manages to fix Richie with a stare. “Please, Richie, c’mon, three, gimme three…”

“So needy,” Richie says again, a little disbelieving. His eyes return to Eddie’s hole, how it’s stretching over his knuckles. “I don’t think you’re ready for three.”

Eddie groans at that, frustration clear in his voice, in every angle of his body. Richie laughs, which only earns him an angry, strung-out glare.

Then Eddie sets his jaw and grits his teeth and swiftly removes his hand from his cock and slides it down, snaking a slippery finger in alongside Richie’s, and instantly the stretch is undeniable, Eddie’s rim taut around their fingers, and Richie gasps at it and then looks up to see Eddie’s face and—

Eddie’s _face_.

Red and sweaty, twisted with pleasure and strain and something else, something deeply and innately Eddie: an immense, self-satisfied vindication.

“T-told you,” he pants, one eye screwed up at Richie, “I could take it.”

“Slut,” Richie teases, astounded.

Eddie grits out a smile and lets his head fall back, his other hand returning to his cock and stroking it hard. “Keep talking, Rich.”

“Fine,” he says, petting soothingly at the skin of his thigh, his hip, as he tries to withdraw his fingers in time with Eddie’s. “Once you got comfortable with three, once you were stretched out and ready, I’d…”

He pauses, not sure how Eddie would want this. His first time bottoming, he was on his hands and knees, and that was pretty good. Might as well go with that.

“I’d roll you over,” he says, “get you on all fours.”

Eddie’s hips kick at that. _“Fuck.”_

“My fingers would still be inside you, still keeping you stretched out—”

“ _God_ , yeah, _hahh_ —”

“And I’d settle behind you on my knees,” Richie says, allowing his eyes to close. Allowing himself to imagine. “I’d run a hand down your back, let you know I was there.”

“I’d know,” Eddie gasps, and Richie can feel how he’s bucking his hips up, fucking into his fist while fingers work him from the inside. “I’d know, Rich, just want you. Come on.”

“You’d be desperate for it,” Richie says, smiling a little to himself, “apparently.”

_“Hnngh.”_

Richie presses his mouth to the inside of Eddie’s knee, hides how his smile widens. “And then I’d pull out my fingers, take the head of my—”

He stutters. He stutters, because _Eddie_ pulls out his finger, and…

Richie swallows, his hand stilling momentarily.

Does Eddie really want him to…?

It’s a dumb question. Obviously, Eddie wants him to. What else has Eddie been begging for all afternoon?

But does he actually _expect_ him to?

“Richie…” Eddie whines, and Richie lifts his head, opens his eyes. Eddie’s looking at him helplessly, his hand still stroking stroking stroking at his cock. “Don’t _stop_ …”

“S-sorry, Eds,” he says, putting the thought from his mind, crooking his fingers up to draw another loud moan from Eddie’s throat. He focuses on drawing those noises from Eddie, on rubbing firmly over his prostate, on how Eddie’s body is pulling tight in on itself, tensing like a bowstring. “I’d… I’d take my dick in my hand and bring it to your hole, cover it with lube—because you need lube when you do anal, you dumbass—”

Eddie’s hips buck up, his face pinching in frustration. “God, Richie, _please_ —”

“I’d press the tip against you, and I’d wait for you to be ready—”

“ _Fuck,_ Richie, I’m ready, _I’m ready, god damn you_ —”

Suppressing a smile, Richie slides his hand down to Eddie’s side. “I’d take hold of your hip with one hand—” He grips it hard. “—and then I’d slide inside you, slowly, make you feel every inch—” He pushes his fingers in as far as they’ll go, making Eddie arch sharply off the floor. “—and then I’d start to fuck you for real, Eds.”

And as Eddie sobs out a heavy moan, Richie pulls his fingers out and thrusts them back in, dragging the pads hard over Eddie’s prostate, sliding against it mercilessly, reveling in how Eddie rocks his hips against his palm, how his heels dig into the floor, pressing his hips up toward the ceiling.

“Hhhaah _, fuck, Richie,_ god, I’m gonna _—_ you’re gonna make me— _”_

“Yeah, fuck,” Richie gasps, his cheek smashed against Eddie’s shaking knee, his cock still rock-hard and untouched as he watches Eddie spasm beneath him, around him. “That’s it, Eds, that’s—”

“ _Fuck, Richie—”_

And with a last desperate kick of his hips and a furious stripping of his hand over his aching-red cock, Eddie paints his bowed-up chest and stomach with splatters of white, shaking and shuddering and swallowing around Richie’s fingers as Richie watches him in something like awe.

_God, he’s so fucking beautiful…_

Breathing hard, Eddie settles back to Earth. Slowly, Richie withdraws his fingers, watching Eddie’s face as it winces. He wipes his fingers on the carpet because… well, it’s the Derry Town House. Who gives a fuck.

Eddie doesn’t speak for a long time, one arm flung over his eyes as his chest rises and falls dramatically. Richie’s eyes don’t leave him. Studying. Waiting.

Finally, Richie can’t take it any longer. Hesitantly, he asks, “You all right?”

Eddie lifts his arm up so it rests on his forehead. The gaze that he fixes Richie with is clear, piercing. It goes straight through Richie like an arrow. “Rich, can I ask you something?”

Richie’s heart leaps into his throat. He tries to fight it down. Tries to put on the nonchalant voice of the straight man who just fingered his best guy friend through orgasm.

You know. That voice.

“What’s up, Eds?”

Eddie’s eyes drift shut momentarily before he opens them again. They’re still clear, but quickly hazing over. (God, _again_?) “Why won’t you fuck me for real?”

Richie can feel his face flushing even hotter, feel his heart threatening to crawl its way out his mouth and just kind of— _splurrt_ —all over Eddie. He looks away. “I-I mean…”

“Like, I get that it’s a little weird,” Eddie goes on, lifting himself up onto the elbow of his good shoulder, “and I get that, you know, we’re friends. But also…” When Richie glances at him, Eddie’s face is set, eyebrows scrunched, putting the pieces together. Using his few moments of lucidity to argue, because he’s Eddie fucking Kaspbrak. “But also, we’re _friends_. And— and I need help, and you’ve clearly fucked people in the ass before, and it couldn’t be all that different from fucking a woman in an ass, I mean, an ass is an ass. And, and—” He bites his lip, eyebrows so low on his face that his eyes are nearly disappearing. “And… you’re not drugged.”

Richie jerks his head back, confused. “W-well, yeah,” he says, trying to laugh. “Not all of us are fucking klutzes with our friends’ glassware—”

“No,” Eddie says, shaking his head, “I mean, I just remembered. You’re _not_ drugged. Which means…”

And his eyes trail down from Richie’s face, over his neck, his sweat-drenched chest, his stomach, down to…

“Which means,” Eddie says, licking his lips, his eyes hungry when they land on Richie’s thick, pulsing cock, “you’re just hard. From _me_.”

Richie’s mouth falls open, his jaw trying to work, but words aren’t coming.

Words aren’t coming.

……Words still aren’t fucking coming.

But words must come to Eddie, because Eddie tears himself from Richie’s dick back to his face, and when their eyes lock, Eddie’s are soft and tentative and horrifyingly understanding.

“Richie,” Eddie says haltingly, “do you like guys?”

Richie’s jaw clicks shut. He lets go of Eddie’s knee, sits back on his heels. Scrubs his face with his clean hand. “Uhh…” he says eloquently as he slides his palm around to rub self-consciously at the back of his neck. “Guess I might…”

When he can bring himself to look at Eddie, the look on his face is not what he was expecting. It’s not anger, or horror, or disgust, it’s…

…hurt?

Richie’s taken aback, speaking before he knows what to say: “E-Eddie, I…”

Eddie’s face screws up in confusion. “Am I, like, repulsive to you, Richie? Do you hate me? Is that why you don’t wanna…?”

Richie practically yelps. “What!? No, Eds—”

Eddie sucks in a breath, his eyes closing briefly. When he opens them again, Richie can see the lustful haze of Mike’s super-fun fuck drug creeping back into them, more with every blink, with every point that Eddie makes, that Eddie clings to. “Because I think I’ve been pretty clear that I would like it if you fucked me. And if it’s not the sexuality thing, and it’s not that you hate me or think I’m gross, and if you agreed to help me out in the very beginning _anyway_ , and don’t mind fucking me with your _fingers_ then I don’t see _why—_ ”

Richie surges forward over him to crash his lips against Eddie’s.

It’s a hail mary, Richie won’t lie. One last move to stop Eddie’s racing mind, stop his thought train from pulling into Unrequited Love Station. Because Richie thought that he could get through this, he thought that he could help Eddie, he thought that he could keep his feelings secret _and_ avoid having the memory of Eddie writhing on his cock emblazoned on the inside of his skull for the rest of his life, but…

But Richie Tozier is a weak man.

And if he has to fuck the love of his life to avoid having to confess his feelings, then so be it.

Eddie’s mouth is instantly hot and wanton against his, kissing him harshly, frantically. His fingers reach up to twine in his hair, twisting it painfully, making Richie whimper. Richie feels Eddie smile against his mouth before he thrusts his tongue between his teeth, licks behind them, gliding desperately over Richie’s.

“God, Eds,” Richie gasps, and Eddie bucks his hips up against him, moaning and then hissing when his cock makes contact with the open fly of Richie’s pants, still on.

Eddie’s hands rush from Richie’s hair down to his hips, shoving at the loose waistband of his pants, then yanking at the hem of his shirt. “Get—these— _off_.”

“Yes, sir,” Richie laughs, sitting back to pull off his jeans and then his shirt. Naked, he settles again between Eddie’s legs and looks down and—

Something about being naked together for the first time gives him pause. Makes him realize truly what’s happening. Eddie is spread before him, disheveled and flushed red down his chest, arms flung out by his head, eyes blown nearly black and raking over his body like he’s been starving for the sight. Taking him in makes heat bloom through Richie’s body, spreading outward from his core, rolling warm into his fingers and toes.

Basically, look up _debauchery_ on Urban Dictionary, and you’d find a jpeg of Eddie Kaspbrak. Probably on the first page of results.

Richie swallows hard, his heart swelling. “Fuck, Eddie, you’re—”

“You’re hot,” Eddie blurts out, sounding mad about it. A displeased flush overcomes his face. “If you don’t fuck me, Richie, I swear to god—”

Richie throws his head back, letting out an incredulous laugh. It’s not really that funny, it’s gotta be mostly nerves, but _fuck,_ Eddie.

Fuck Eddie.

Him, fuck Eddie?

_Eddie._

“First, let’s get you off the floor,” Richie says. Eddie makes an annoyed sound, like Richie is only delaying it to be difficult. Ignoring him, Richie slides an arm under Eddie’s lower back and hoists him up into a sitting position.

“Whoa,” Eddie lets out, his eyes going wide at how easily Richie maneuvered him. It makes Richie think for one second about scooping him up into his arms, throwing him onto the bed, getting to see the way Eddie’s face would look _then_ … but then he remembers he’s forty, and he never exactly learned how to lift with his legs, whatever that means. Instead, he simply stands and offers Eddie a hand, pulling him up easily.

Eddie’s legs are wobbly, though, his eyes are going hazier by the second, and instead of standing smoothly he kind of stumbles, falling against Richie. Richie _oof_ s out a surprised grunt, and the both of them tumble gracelessly onto the bedspread. Richie laughs, and Eddie lets out an annoyed huff, and before Richie can catch his breath, Eddie’s mouth is on his again, tongue probing, fingers cupping around the back of his neck. Richie can’t help the muffled moan that escapes between his teeth as Eddie adjusts to straddle him, to rock back against him.

“You said,” Eddie pants, breath hot on Richie’s face, “you said if I could take three…”

Heat spikes in Richie’s gut, his cock throbbing as he feels Eddie reach back to wrap a hand around it, to sit back and line himself up.

Richie’s hands fly to Eddie’s hips, gripping him in place. “L-lube,” he chokes out, strangled.

As far as final coherent thoughts go, he thinks it’s a good one.

Eddie, though, is unimpressed, as usual. He rolls his eyes, swinging a leg over Richie to get off the bed and find the bottle on the floor. Richie uses the opportunity to get himself situated a bit better, his whole body laid out on the bed and his head against the pillows.

Within moments, Eddie is back, hooking his leg over Richie’s thighs and squirting the lube directly onto his cock, muttering angrily to himself. It seems like this latest wave of the drug is not as strong—Eddie still eager for contact but not losing himself so much. It’s even more tantalizing, honestly, making electricity lance up Richie’s spine.

Eddie tosses the bottle aside and slathers it on with a rough hand, glaring at Richie as he gasps at the long-awaited stimulation. “Is that enough for you, Lube King?” he asks bitterly.

Richie laughs. Nods. Then his brain starts going, running on about half a cylinder and some chewing gum. “Wait, wait, Eddie,” he says excitedly, and Eddie freezes where he’s crawling back over Richie’s dick to look at him expectantly. “King Lubey XIV.”

Eddie’s head lolls back on his neck, his eyes rolling so hard they hit the ceiling. Then he jerks, curling back forward, a hand coming up to cover his mouth. A giggle, and then a laugh, and then a full-blown guffaw streams through his fingers, his eyes crinkling. Richie watches him in delight, in adoration, in whole-ass _love_ , a big dumb grin on his face, his hands on Eddie’s hairy, wiry thighs.

“Rich, you are such a fucking idiot,” Eddie laughs, shaking his head, and then he rocks forward and presses his lips to Richie’s.

And it’s _different_ , right away. It’s sweet, and smooth, and not soft, exactly, but aiming towards that, like Eddie knows how it should be but he just can’t do it because of who he is as a person. And Richie finds himself kissing back the same way, his fingers carding through Eddie’s hair, tongue darting out almost tentatively to slide against Eddie’s.

He sighs, _“Eds…”_

Eddie moans loud against his mouth.

Richie’s eyebrows twitch, something wriggling at the back of his mind. “Fuck, Eds.”

Again, Eddie moans, shivering against him, one hand fisting in his hair while the other reaches back, wrapping around his oiled-up cock once more.

“Eddie,” Richie says, a smile starting to spread as he begins to understand. As he thinks he understands.

But Eddie is consumed with the process of lining himself up, scooting his knees, catching his own rim with the head of Richie’s cock. “Mm,” he hums and doesn’t even wait for an answer before he starts to sink down.

And Richie wants to ask him, _wants_ to find out if what he thinks he understands is true, but Eddie’s lowering himself on his dick, his palms landing on Richie’s chest for purchase, his eyebrows pinching together, and Richie has to watch, has to see, has to _feel_ how Eddie’s hole stretches and hugs around him.

 _“God,”_ Eddie sobs, his eyes clenched shut. Spit lands on Richie’s neck and shoulder from the force of it, and Richie’s hands fly to Eddie’s hips, steadying him, hoping to steady himself, too.

“Eddie—”

“You said,” Eddie chokes, cracks open an eye to scowl. “ _You said if I could take three.”_

Richie’s eyes go wide, fingers gripping Eddie’s waist, trying to keep him still, but he’s still sinking down, still forcing Richie’s cock inside him millimeter by millimeter. “Then _stop_ ,” is all Richie has the wherewithal to say.

“Fuck you,” Eddie grits out, but nevertheless he pauses, catching his breath. He reaches a trembling hand between them, feels how much is left. He sighs dramatically at what he finds. “God, fuck you, Richie.”

“You are,” Richie says weakly, fingers twitching with the effort of holding still.

Eddie eyes him. “I’m assuming this gets easier.”

“There’s always more lube.”

“You and your lube.”

The smile on Richie’s face wavers as Eddie resettles his knees, his hands. He takes a deep breath and then lifts his hips, until Richie’s almost slipping out of him. Then he slides back down, the stretch seeming to go more smoothly this time. Eddie bites his lip, rocks up and down, up and down, each time taking more of Richie’s cock, and when Richie’s eyes meet his after a few minutes, Eddie’s are clouded over, gone dark and hazy again, gasps and little moans leaving his lips.

Then he rocks back and his ass settles fully against Richie’s lap, and they both groan, Richie’s fingers digging into the meat of his hip as he feels his eyelids flutter shut.

“Knew I could take it,” Eddie pants, his voice dripping with triumph. Richie forces his eyes open to find him flushed nearly to his belly button, his lips bitten red, his hair mussed and flopping in his face. He squints proudly at Richie, a shit-eating grin on his face. “Now are you just gonna sit there or do I have to do all the work?”

Richie swallows dryly. Lets his mouth bloom into an answering grin. He reaches up to cup a hand around his cheek and breathes: _“Eds.”_

Like he thought, like he guessed, like he _hoped_ , Eddie’s eyes instantly flutter shut at the name, his hips rocking back up and down as a strangled moan leaves his chest. “God, Richie.”

Heart soars. Hands fly back to Eddie’s ass, squeezing hard. Incredulous hope blossoms in Richie’s chest. “Eds.”

“Fuck, yeah, that’s—”

Heels find the bed. Hips kick up, making Eddie yelp and fall forward. Arms wrap around him, crushing him against him. _“_ Eds, _fuck._ Eds, you _—”_

_Eds, you want me? Eds, you need me? Eds, you feel the same way?_

_Why else would you be coming apart with every time I call you by the nickname that I gave you twenty-seven years ago, Eds?_

“Richie—”

Eddie’s voice is gasping in his ear, overwhelmed, desperate, whimpering and needy, and breathy moans punching out of him with every thrust of Richie’s hips up against his. Richie’s arms are tight around him, pinning Eddie’s against his chest. One hand grips Eddie’s lower back, the other is buried in the hair at the back of Eddie’s head, holding him against Richie’s cheek so that Richie can press sloppy kisses against his cheekbone, the skin beside his ear, murmuring Eddie’s name helplessly as he drives into him.

Then Eddie begins to rock back against him again, lifting his hips even higher, arching them away, and the whimpers in Richie’s ear go a little strained. Richie slows, lets his hand fall from Eddie’s back, and Eddie pushes up, gets his elbows beneath him to bring his face inches from Richie’s.

“What’s wrong?” Richie asks.

Eddie bites his lip and looks away. “My dick is still sore from earlier,” he mumbles, clearly both embarrassed and annoyed. “I think I was too rough with it, and now it’s, like, rubbing between…”

“Oh, okay. Uhh, let’s flip?”

In a few eager seconds, Richie rolls them over so Eddie’s back is on the bed, Richie kneeling again between his legs. Eddie’s cock is red and leaking against his stomach, and Richie is careful to avoid touching it as he hooks his hands under Eddie’s ass and drags it into his lap, his legs over his shoulders.

Lining himself up, Richie asks, “This good?”

Eddie only nods feverishly, eyes going dark again as the blunt head of Richie’s cock nudges at his stretched-out hole. His mouth drops open as Richie slides in, letting out a deep groan as Richie begins again to move.

“God, _fuck_ ,” Eddie gasps, hands sliding into his own hair and then higher, his good arm gripping the head of the bed.

“Yeah? You like that, Eds?”

Eddie moans hard, his cheek falling to the pillow as he nods. “Yeah, yeah,” he breathes. “Harder— the angle—”

Dutifully, Richie lifts Eddie’s hips, raising up on his knees a little to try to fuck up into him, trying to hit the right spot. He knows he’s got it when Eddie jerks beneath him, cries out, the muscles in the arm gripping the headboard going taut and _fuck_ , Eddie’s hot, Eddie’s so fucking hot.

“That’s it, Rich, yeah, _ahh.._. More, _more_ —”

Richie obliges, lifting up even higher on his knees and fucking him harder, deeper, and with every inch he raises himself up, he earns more of those punched-out moans, more of those gasping breaths, and he chases them all, until he’s fucking _down into_ Eddie, until Eddie’s bent nearly in two, his long, thick cock hanging untouched between them, the precome that was pooling on his stomach dripping down his chest to gather in the divot of his collarbone. Richie’s toes dig into the bedspread. His hands grip the headboard beside Eddie’s. The movements of his hips grow increasingly frantic and off-kilter as he nears his own orgasm.

“Fuck, Eddie,” he grits out, staring down at him, at his scarlet, overwhelmed face, how his mouth is dropped open, how his eyebrows are clenched and slanted upwards. “Fuck, I’m almost—”

Eddie’s eyes open, blown black. His tone is sharp and desperate. “Don’t stop. Not yet, I’m not—”

 _“Hnnn,”_ Richie whines, his head spinning as he tries to clamp down on the mounting heat. “You might not, from this,” he grits out. “Your dick—”

But Eddie’s face sets stubbornly. He moves his hand from Richie’s side to his chest, slicking it with the precome there, and then wraps it around his cock. He gives it a few tugs, and—

His face twists in pain, in frustration, his hand dropping back to the bed. He whines desperately, tossing his head from left to right, and Richie’s reminded suddenly of Eddie throwing a tantrum when they were young and he didn’t get his way.

Half-smiling, Richie slows his movements, until he’s merely rocking, grinding down as lightly as he can. His legs and arms are trembling with the effort not to rest his whole weight on Eddie’s folded body. “Eds, it’s okay, I can just—”

But Eddie doesn’t even look at him, is only glaring determinedly, almost challengingly, at his own dick where it’s hanging between them, like it’s doing him a personal insult by being so sensitive. He takes a deep breath, and Richie feels it, rises with it, lowers when Eddie lets it out, and Eddie curls himself even farther, bending until his knees are practically at his shoulders, and he—

He opens his mouth and sticks out his tongue and licks over the head of his own cock.

A shiver runs straight up Richie’s spine at the sight. His eyes go unfocused at it, overwhelmed. “Holy _shit_.”

“Mm,” Eddie hums, tongue lapping at the dripping head.

Holy shit.

_Holy shit._

Richie is… Richie can’t…

Eddie’s eye cracks open, an eyebrow quirked up, like, _Well? Any day now._

“Holy shit,” Richie says again, breathless. “I can’t fucking—”

But Eddie whines, _“Hnngh…”_ and it’s plaintive. Needy. Begging.

So Richie clenches his jaw and moves and the first thrust out and back in is trembling, almost vibrating, muscles twitching and tensing. His pleasure is mounting higher higher higher with every wet, muffled slurp and moan from Eddie beneath him.

“Holy fuck, Eddie,” Richie chokes, spinning out, his hands gripping the headboard for dear life. His toes scrabble for purchase on the polyester. “God, I can’t believe I’m fucking you, Eddie…”

Eddie moans throatily, lips hugging the tip of his cock, drooling down the sides of his mouth, his body bouncing on the bed with every thrust. Richie’s noises join his, going open-mouthed and guttural, forced from his chest as his hips begin to stutter, sparks lighting at the base of his spine. Eddie is shaking beneath him, his moans going short and pitchy, making Richie dizzy, delirious, frantic with heat, tipping over the edge.

Then Eddie convulses, breaks his mouth away from his cock to gasp, “Oh, _fuck_ , oh _fuckfuckfuck, Richie—!”_ and paints white all over his own lips and chin and neck and—

 _“_ Oh my god, _Eds,_ oh my _—”_ Richie’s vision swims as he comes with an overwhelmed shout, burying his cock deep in Eddie’s body, grinding hard as stars burst behind his eyes, as he spills hot and wet and shattered inside.

The come-down is a little harsher than normal—for both of them, it seems. Richie practically falls off Eddie with a thud and the squeal of the bedsprings, his entire body shaking with the use of muscles that normally don’t get nearly such a workout. Eddie unfolds himself with a heavy sigh. He straightens his arms. Stretches his legs down the bed. Flexes his toes.

Richie watches him carefully throughout, heart still pounding, mind still racing with…

_Everyone would know you had me_

and

_Richie, just want you._

and

_Tell me how you would fuck me, Richie, please—_

and most of all Eds.

_Eds, Eds, Eds._

Tentatively, his heart in his throat, Richie reaches a hand to Eddie’s face. Eddie goes still when Richie’s thumb lands on his chin, settling over the traces of come that are still there.

“Eds,” Richie says gently.

Eddie swallows, the movement obvious with the way the light catches the sheen of sweat and spit and come on his skin. He slowly turns his face to Richie, his eyes clear but filled with uncertainty, with the nerves that Richie feels. Hope blooms in Richie’s chest.

Quietly, almost shyly, Eddie mumbles: “Don’t call me Eds.”

A grin spreads across Richie’s face, his heart leaping. “Eds,” he says again, half-teasing.

Eddie sighs loudly, rolls his eyes without heat. “Seriously, don’t,” he says, “we’ll be here all fucking day.”

Richie laughs, the smile splitting his face from ear to ear. God. Eds. “Fuck, I can’t believe this,” he laughs, joyful. “You love it!”

“I do not love it.”

“Clearly you do! You can’t get enough. You’re a slut for Eds. An Eds slut.”

Eddie groans, still scowling. “Fuck you, I am not an _Eds slut_ , it’s just… it’s just what you call me, so…”

“Yeah, exactly,” Richie says, curling onto his side eagerly. “It’s what _I_ call you. So…”

Eddie’s face, coming down from its flushed state, goes a little pink again. He looks away. “Yeah, so it’s what you call me, so what?”

“Eddie,” Richie says, trying to school his tone into something more serious. It has the desired effect: Eddie cautiously, begrudgingly, looks over to him. He swallows, the words catching in his throat. “Eddie, I… Eddie, do you…?”

Richie tries to will the words to come, but they won’t, they won’t, they’re sticking in his esophagus, until finally Eddie groans and throws his hands in the air.

“God, _fine, yes!_ ” he exclaims, exasperated. “Yes, Richie, I have feelings for you, okay? Yes, I’m in love with you. Yes, I wanted to fuck you. Yes, I got stupid horny for the dumbass nickname you gave me when we were ten. Okay!? Is that what you wanted to hear!? _Fuck!_ ” And he slams his hands back down on the bedspread, and then has to rub at his shoulder, wincing with the impact.

And Richie is…

Richie is soaring.

Breathlessly, he asks, “Can I kiss you?”

Eddie whips his head over. Looks at him like he’s crazy. “Uh, yeah? But I still have _mmf_ —”

It’s a bad kiss. It’s toothy with smiles, it’s awkward with catching Eddie in the middle of talking, it’s salty and bitter with Eddie’s sweat and come, but fuck. It’s Eddie. It’s Eddie, and he’s kissing him back, and Richie is soaring.

He pulls away to rest his forehead against Eddie’s, disbelieving. “I didn’t want to fuck you because I was afraid you would figure out I’m in love with you,” he confesses, eyes closed, in one rushing breath.

He can feel Eddie’s forehead scrunch up in a frown. “What the fuck, Richie?” he laughs. “That’s not a thing.”

“To be fair, it is how I figured out you were in love with me.”

Eddie huffs irritably, looks away. “Fine. But you didn’t have to make me fucking beg for it so much.”

Richie laughs, kisses him apologetically. Grudgingly, Eddie returns it, and then yelps when Richie licks a stripe across his chin, cleaning off the excess come. Chuckling, Richie lets Eddie shove him off and falls back to the bed.

“Man,” Richie says, folding his arms under his head, “thank god you were such a klutz with Mike’s fuck drug, am I right?”

Eddie, to his surprise, is quiet.

Richie frowns. Turns to him. Eddie is avoiding his eyes. “Eds,” he says, still smiling at the little shiver it gives him, probably aftershocks of the… wait. “It _was_ because of the fuck drug, right? I mean, you didn’t, like, pretend to be…?”

“No!” Eddie exclaims, sputtering. “Jesus, I’m forty, dude, you really think I could go that hard for that long without something in my system?”

“I didn’t think you could suck your own dick until ten minutes ago, man, I’m not putting anything past you.”

Eddie sighs. “Well, I could only do that because of your, like, weight on me and I’ll probably be sore as hell tomorrow, but fine… No, I didn’t _pretend_ to be drugged, I just—” He bites his lip, looks away. Richie is _dying_ to know what it is. “I just… wasn’t as much of a klutz as you thought I was.”

Richie’s eyebrows lift. He blinks as another smile spreads. “Are you telling me,” he says slowly, “that you dosed yourself _on purpose_?”

But that doesn’t seem to be it, either. Eddie screws up his face. “No, that was a mistake,” he says. His eyes meet Richie’s and then slide away again as he settles, brings his hands together to start to gesture defensively. “Ugh, okay, fine. So, first of all, you need to know that I didn’t know it was going to be this bad…”

Richie frowns. “Uh-huh…”

“Bill pointed it out to me while we were packing. He said that it helped him see the truth or whatever, that he and Mike, quote, ‘had a good time.’” Eddie glances at him with those big eyes, like he did at the beginning of this, that look that says that Richie should get it now.

Richie doesn’t get it now. “Uh-huh…?”

Eddie sighs. Carries on, air-quoting furiously. “He said it, quote, ‘made him feel good,’ and that he and Mike, quote, ‘got very honest’ and ‘learned a lot about each other.’ And I thought, well…” Eddie takes a deep breath, winces. “It might be nice if, you know… Richie and I…”

And finally, the pieces fall into place.

Richie sits straight up, his eyes going wide. His jaw drops. “I was the target!” he exclaims, staring at Eddie whose eyes are just as frantic in his face. “You wanted to fuck drug me!”

“I didn’t know that’s what it was!”

_“J’accuse!”_

“I wasn’t gonna do it against your will! I just thought I’d take some of it for later, and then I spilled it, and Bill and Mike told me—”

 _“J’a-_ fucking- _cuse!”_

“Ughhhh…” Eddie lets his head fall back on the pillow with a thud, scrubbing his face with one hand. “I’m sorry, I didn’t know it would be such a fucking disaster. I just wanted to get up the courage to, you know…” He sighs. “…tell you what I tried to in the sewers…”

Richie wants to laugh at him. He wants to so fucking bad. Because can you believe this guy? This guy chucks a javelin at a killer clown from outer space and survives impaling but still thinks he needs a drug to be brave enough just to say _I love you_. This guy accidentally doses himself with a librarian’s party drug and begs to get fucking railed rather than just coming out and saying _Hey Richie we oughta talk._

But Richie doesn’t laugh. For once, Richie is strong. He falls back to the bed beside Eddie, wraps his arms around him, and kisses him hard on the temple, on the nose, on the lips. He teases him and touches him and tells him he forgives him for being such an Eds slut and doesn’t let him go when Eddie grumbles that he hopes that doesn’t catch on.

He loves him. He loves him, he loves him, he loves him, because Richie Tozier is a weak man.

But Eddie Kaspbrak is, too.

**Author's Note:**

> thanks to the gc as always and to [laser](https://archiveofourown.org/users/suttapitaka/pseuds/suttapitaka) in particular for using his jade-specific knowledge to beta this fic! if they hate it i’m blaming you, buddy.
> 
> the terrible erotica that bev and richie read is called [farm family](https://www.you-books.com/book/W-Taylor/Farm-Family) and was gifted to mike by his behind-the-scenes fuck drug friend who i'm sure is a pretty cool person.
> 
> i'm on twitter [@tempestbreak_](https://twitter.com/tempestbreak_).


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